Citizen ATX
Citizen ATX
Soul Killers: Busyness
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"I'm just too busy". We all have used this phrase at some point in our lives. Many of us use it every week. If we are being honest, sometimes we're not even actually THAT busy. However, there is plenty in this world to keep you busy. The more your responsibilities grow the busier you get and the less time you have for other areas. But how do we find time for Silence/Solitude in a season of busyness? Join Matt and Nathan as they discuss this concept of busyness and how to be productive in life while still setting aside time to spend with the Lord each day.
Hello there and welcome to the Citizen ATX Podcast. My name is Matt Gillum, and we are so glad that you are joining us today as we continue our Soul Killers series. If you've been following with us at Austin Baptist Church, we've been walking through a series called Pathways, talking about the spiritual disciplines and the things that build us up. And so we felt like on the podcast it would be a good idea to observe the opposite of that, of the kind of things that we allow into our lives that diminish rather than build us up. And so today with me in the studio is Nathan Wood. Hello, Nathan.
SPEAKER_01Hello, hello.
SPEAKER_02And he is fresh back from the Turks and Orkecos. And so he knows a lot about rest and relaxation.
SPEAKER_00Amen.
SPEAKER_02He can tell you about it. And so but this past week in the sermon, uh, we talked about the pathways of silence and solitude and how God can use that to build us up and to draw us closer to Him. And so when we were identifying the soul killer for today, we stumbled upon busyness. So let's start there, Nathan. What do we mean by busyness and how is it a soul killer?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think when I think of solitude and silence, I think typically of rest. I mean that kind of associates with it. It's not always rest. You can be working and be in silence or solitude, but it's kind of associated with taking a step back. Whereas like busyness to me is the opposite of that, right? Is it's I'm actually going to be actively engaged so that I don't have to be in silence or solitude.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And in the sermon I defined uh silence as stopping the processes of input and information and solitude as separating from the societ society, whether physically or digitally, um, that you normally rely upon. And so uh when we define busyness, it really would be more of the idea of adding more things in, uh stacking them on top of each other. Uh and I mean you you you were telling me a stat off off air here about uh some Australians, I think it was, but that with that relationship to silence and zoom.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, yeah. So there's uh there was a study that was done several years ago, and they did some university students in Australia uh and they discovered that they had something called sedophobia. And sedatophobia is the fear of silence. Yeah. Uh and what they did find, though, I will say, is a very large percentage of them had this fear of silence. But what they learned is it is a learned behavior. Oh yeah. Which means you can unlearn it. So it's that they have grown just because think about it. When you get ready, how many people actually get ready in silence? Now, you and I have small children, so we almost never get ready in silence.
SPEAKER_02Well, let's put a caveat there because usually if I'm getting ready, I'm having to tiptoe around in a dark room to not wake up my wife and kids. And then when they do, it all is chaos. Okay, so for you it is silence. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00For me, it's a lot, there's a lot of chaos associated with the morning routines, grumpy kids. But think about how many people, when you're on the way to work, very few people just sit in silence. It's a podcast, it's maybe even citizen ATX. Yeah. How dare you? It is it's a podcast, it's music. When you're when you're getting ready in the mirror or whatever, there's always something on in the background. And so there's very few times that people sit, and it's actually leading people to develop a fear of silence. Now, you may not be a conscious thought of like, oh, I'm terrified of it, but people just get seem to get uncomfortable in it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I mean you you can look up online uh examples of these like hyper quiet rooms uh where they where they have it completely insulated, and people can't stand being in there for more than like two or three minutes because you can hear, I mean, you can't hear you're so used to receiving information all the time that your mind kind of it doesn't know how to process that. And and frankly, uh they talk about sometimes people will start hallucinating because their body is expectant of that information input. And so I mean I think, yeah, absolutely that this is a I think as we look at people's actions, whether that what regardless of what they say, I would say most people have some kind of a fear of silence. Um and so why then uh so that that is that that fear of silence. And so then how does busyness then become a soul killer in particular? Like, oh, I mean, obviously being ha being busy is kind of just part of life in some aspects, but how is it that busyness becomes a soul killer to for people?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, I think what's like one of the biggest reasons people always give for not reading the Bible, not spending time in prayer. Too busy. Yeah. I got too much stuff going on. Uh and so I think if you have a state of busyness, I think just ignoring the the silence and the solitude aspect can come from that is it turns your spiritual development more into a task to be completed in an orderly amount of time.
SPEAKER_01Right?
SPEAKER_00Whenever we're working, there is a I've got X amount of things I have to do today. So I know I can't spend 10 out six hours on this one project. I've got to be able to 20 minutes here, 30 minutes here, 45 minutes here. It's very stretch, very structured and scheduled. Whereas it can make our faith like that, where it's like, hey, I've got my 15-minute window I can fit my devotional into. I've got if I pray for more than like two minutes, I'm gonna get a little uncomfortable with how long this is going. And so I'm gonna have to cut this off. It's it's almost like you start scheduling your time with God as opposed to just being present with God.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I I I would say that it generally you do if if in the world in which we live in, you kind of have to schedule, right? Like if you don't, if you don't hold that boundary, if you don't make sure that that is inviolable, it will be violated, right? And I think also from a from a biblical standpoint, you know, when we look at the the Proverbs, it talks a lot about laziness in particular, which is kind of the flip side of that coin, right? Um and so I I hope that as you're hearing this, as we're talking about busyness, uh there is a good amount of busyness which we would call productivity, like being in your life, uh having a life of a quality that produces things, that is helpful in your community, generous in your community, stuff like that. And I think when we get to this idea of busyness, it is almost for the sake of being busy, right? Oh yeah. That and I do think we tend to do that. Um and so I mean that then gets us to the second second question. Uh if busyness is a soul killer, why do we struggle so much with it? I mean, we we can look at this action of busyness as, well, it's it's a bad thing for somebody to be overly busy, but why do we why do we struggle with it so much?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Uh I think oh, there's so many different ways that you can struggle with it. It's kind of hard to like cover them all. Right. Um, I think you have a couple different ways it can happen. I think one, there is the uh if I'm not being if I'm not creating value, if I'm not being productive, then I'm not um I'm not improving my value. I'm not, I could be hustling more, I could be creating more opportunities, I could be working more. Yeah. So for some people, there is that that push of, well, I have to be more successful, I have to make more kind of a shame driver, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, but also I think some people it comes down to it really it can come down to how you were raised a little bit. I mean, I have you ever met people who when they go home, they can't sit still. Yeah. Like they're even if they're they're resting. Yeah, I'm one of those. It's like when you're at home, it's like there has like my best friend growing up, his dad would always have a project going. So it's like he would go work his normal work schedule, and then he would get home and he would spend two to three hours a night. It would be random things around the house. He's fixing this, he's doing this. Like he almost never just sat and rested. He had to be busy all the time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I mean that is uh that there is a compulsion that happens there, right, from the play from the standpoint of um, you know, if I'm not doing this, then I'm not I have less value in myself. Um and I mean a couple of other things that kind of spring to my mind are things like passivity, because one of the things that can happen is, you know, if I'm not gonna if I don't control my schedule, then somebody else is gonna control it for me. And so often people are such people there if if those who are listening who are people pleasers will know what I'm talking about, where they don't want to upset somebody else when they make a demand on their time, even if it's not reasonable to ask for that part of their time. And so they say okay. And so then all of a sudden, because they've said okay to everybody and said no to nobody, they're working constantly, they're busy constantly, they're doing favors for people constantly. They're um, you know, you can have somebody who is not really occupied at all, but all but they're busy all the time because they've volunteered for everything. Um, and so you can have this kind of passivity where you don't protect your schedule, you don't make your time, you don't value your own time enough um or have a realistic view of the value of your time. And so that passiveness is part of it. I think also uh from the standpoint of pride and vulnerability, um busyness can become a soul killer because we get to this point, I mean it becomes a badge of honor, doesn't it? And that, oh yeah, I mean, I'm so important that I have all these meetings all day, and I I'm and sometimes I've I've observed this in myself where and this is this is not not great, but sometimes I will do something during the day that wasn't on my schedule, and so then I'll go back and I'll put it on my schedule and check it off so I feel good about myself. I get to count that one on the old on the old score scorecard. I may or may not have done that today. So but I mean, it w what we do with busyness is we we give it a a place to lodge our pride to an extent of look at the things that I can do, look how important I am, I'm needed in all these places at all these times, when that's really not true, right? And um I do think also in that there is that vulnerability piece that if I'm not active or serving or um producing value, um I'm weak. I'm not maybe I'm not necessary, maybe. I mean, in a workplace scenario, maybe I'll lose my job because I'm not being productive enough. Um and so there's that that fear of if I'm not busy, then what am I? Right. I mean, talking about the identity piece of that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I've I've uh I will say that's something that I think the the insecurity with a job. I think one thing that's interesting is as pastors, we have a very unique job um in terms of what's going on.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I've been at places where there's seasons where it's like, hey, this season's actually lighter for me. And if I'm being honest with you, I don't really have like nine to five every single day. I don't have 45, 50 hours of work to do in that week. And so it's struggled with that of like, well, am I producing enough? You know what I'm saying? Do I have enough going on? Um, and so those are also usually good opportunities to look ahead and to work on things that are not necessarily pressing, right, but are coming up. But there's that there's that tension of like, am I actually achieving goals today? You know, that can kind of that can hit sometimes as well.
SPEAKER_02Well, and it's that productivity versus busyness piece, right? Like, and a lot of times we give ourselves this busy work in order to to feel accomplished in what we're doing, and um we wind up just churning. And there there uh for that reason we feel a kind of a discontent um uh with the what we're doing because we never have a chance to actually appreciate it, right? Uh because that's one of the other pieces is that if you're always working, if you're always busy, then you never have opportunity to reflect, you never have opportunity to interpret. You're constantly I mean, if everything is urgent, then nothing is valued. And I mean it be it becomes for people, it drives them on on that stress train of on and on and on and on. And you know, it's no wonder that when people inevitably find themselves alone with their thoughts because they've gotten so used to being busy all the time, it's like coming off of a drug. I mean, people will feel withdrawals from the constant noise from checking their phone every five minutes. Um and I I will speak of that from my personal perspective that when I uh the ch the church gave me the opportunity to take a sabbatical a coup uh for a couple of months. Um, and one of the things that I did was take my church email off my phone. I also took Facebook and Instagram off my phone. Um, and you know what I did, you know what happened? I got really into LinkedIn. Life finds a way. But you know, it really in that way the busyness piece becomes kind of a drug to us because it's the thing that we do, it's the it's the routine that we find ourselves in. And when we were looking at meaning and purpose through the things that we do, we just we're just busy people, all right.
SPEAKER_00So I I I will say just on that, just being on vacation this last week. And vacation for me is always interesting because it's like for a couple of days I really, really enjoy it. Yeah. And then after a couple of days, I start to feel kind of worthless, you know, like like almost like a little bit of like an itching, like I need to be doing something. Like at a certain point, I'm just like watching on the beach. It's like I'm not doing I'm not producing something. It's like I could feel that I have to wrestle with that of myself of like, hey, it's been like three or four days and I haven't accomplished anything. And it's it starts to weigh on you a little bit.
SPEAKER_02But you also have the flip side of the coin that when you get to the end of vacation, yeah, and I don't know that there's a term out there for I think it's about I think they've they've they've located it at three o'clock on a Sunday afternoon called the Sunday Scaries, where all of a sudden the responsibility and the dread of what's coming up the next week and then the workday starts floods in. That's a real thing. Like those Sunday scaries are are you know, they're they're rough.
SPEAKER_00Oh, very true.
SPEAKER_02And then in a time that you're supposed to be resting, supposed to be uh interacting with family, you're you're obsessing over how can I get ahead of all these problems that I foreseen.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you're basically doing the mental work of like setting everything up.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you are. It's a it's a crazy thing. And so, how are silence and solitude a discipline that can help defeat this monster of busyness? If we've if we've located that busyness is a real problem, that it does kind of suck the life out of people, how are silence and solitude um partial antidotes to that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, I think because you are intentionally identifying an issue and then you are stopping it. Like you're you're choosing to have the discipline of like, hey, I'm gonna rest. And I know it might be a little bit uncomfortable. I know it might take some time to get used to this to build the habit. It's like anything else. When you first start doing something, it becomes kind of awkward in the beginning. You're not competent at it yet. Yeah. Uh, and you struggle more, but the more you do it, the better you get at it, the more comfortable you get, the the but more you're able to do it. Uh, and so I think it's one of those things where it's identifying a problem and then choosing to have power and control over that and to say, hey, I'm I'm gonna be in control of this.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And I mean, that is certainly for for those who struggle with that people-pleasing busyness, that being able to have responsibility and and a sense of control over your schedule is meaningful. I think also the opposite is true for folks who are dealing with it from a pride standpoint, where um maybe maybe you're not needed all the time, right? Maybe maybe you maybe your efforts are like maybe I 'cause I what I said the way that I see this is that one of the one of the antithesis, antithesis, whatever however you would say that word, you crushed it. Opposites one of the opposites of busyness is actually trust that hey, you know, I may not be producing right something right now, but that's okay. And you know, in silence and in solitude, you know, there are gonna be times where rest and that overlap, and you've got to be able to get to that point where you recognize that uh, you know, I'm not defined by the amount of emails I can respond to in an hour. And I mean this is a real thing. You you you know, uh you come back from a vacation and you come back and oh I've got three hundred uned unread emails, right? It's this you know, little badge we put on our shirt. But you know, the the what silence and solitude do is stop the process, right? We we put the brakes on the way things have worked, the routine, the the the general demand on our time and resources. And but we don't just stop it. I in and in the in the sermon yesterday I made the statement that silence and solitude are not ends and of themselves. I I think sometimes when we when when people have that perspective of what does it mean to practice silence and solitude, they think of the monk on top of a mountain and uh you know uh finding enlightenment or something like that. I mean when I see it in the Bible, you consider things like when Jesus uh hears that his friend John the Baptist is killed, and then he goes off on his own. He doesn't go off on his own in order to just be completely neutral with the environment. He has major grief over the death of his friend and he needs to give it to God. Um, you know, you see other aspects of it. Uh in again, this was in the sermon yesterday. Um Elijah, uh, whenever he hears the voice of God, he goes in uh first Kings 19, he he go out he goes through a firestorm, a windstorm, and a an earthquake before he hears the word the voice of the Lord. And I mean it's I I I think sometimes we diminish a little bit of that. That if you if you've ever been through a tornado, it's not fun. Like it it is a scary experience. But you know, ultimately when we talk about solitude, it sets the tone, it sets the table for us to hear God's voice. Um it's us putting putting ourselves in a posture where we can hear versus what busyness does, which says, I can't stop for long enough to actually hear what God has to say. Um and you know, one one other point that I had yesterday on this was to the nature of hearing God's voice. That one of the reasons why we're so apt to jump into busyness is because uh sometimes what we can do is because you made that statement about, well, we're just gonna squeeze in a little bit of time for God here and that'll be that'll be good sufficient. Usually that's not because we're trying to hear the voice of God, but because we're trying to get God to affirm what we're already doing and what we're already thinking about. There's a real insecurity when we let go of our own agenda, our own schedule, and then allow God to take that as well. I mean, it's it's it's a place where you I mean you made that statement of control. It actually is a place where we start to let go of control of what's happening. And that's what's so weird about this is that busyness is can be very passive or it can be very aggressive, you know. It's it it shows up in a lot of different ways, but ultimately it's that statement of where your heart resides and and what it what it depends upon. Yeah. And so um so yeah, I mean, and so as we're talking about this, you know, each of the spiritual pathways uh provides us with discipline, right? Like these are the these are otherwise called the spiritual disciplines, uh great book on that. Richard Foster's celebration of discipline. Um I believe Dallas Willard has one. Um there's a I mean there are a bunch of books about spiritual disciplines, but how does the rhythm of discipline work like a workout for silence and for solitude? How how do we as we're de in Nathan, in your role as a young adult pastor at the church, a young adult comes to you and says, Hey, I want to develop these disciplines, these pathways of silence and solitude? What are some of those principles that you need to get them to start expecting and working in so that they can actually develop this in their life?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well I think the first thing, and this ironically sound almost counterintuitive I said before, it's like you need to schedule it. I mean, because and and I to be fair, I meant on that more so that it's not about setting it, it's more about like are I just have to get through the next 15 minutes. That's that's more of a thought of how we view it as opposed to because there is an importance in the discipline of setting time.
SPEAKER_02As a checkbox, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because you you do need to set time as most adults, we're busy. Like that's just that is a nature of life. I've got kids, I've got a job, I've got a wife. I can't just meander through the day and hope that I can find time. I've got to set time for it. So the first step would be set a time for it. Um, and then I think anything, I think it's kind of baby steps as you start off. Like whenever uh if you're getting if you used to lift a lot and you go back to the gym, I do not recommend you go back to your max you had 15 years ago whenever you were in college. You know, sure.
SPEAKER_02Go for it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like don't just walk back and expect you're gonna hit full on what you used to do. Like you gotta, it's you gotta work your way back. You gotta work your way into it. And so it might be as simple as it's just like, hey, when you're driving to work, don't have anything on. And just while you're driving, just be concentrating your efforts on gratitude, God, whatever it might be, just kind of in your mind, just be thinking about spiritual things. I think you can also sit in silence and focus on things that have nothing to do with God. Like you could sit in silence and just focus on your fantasy football coming up or the draft or whatever it is, right? So I think it's intentionally setting that time. And I think starting at a small amount, right? Like I wouldn't recommend if you've never really done solitude before, hey, I want you to go spend five hours on Friday doing nothing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's a really gonna struggle with that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you're gonna struggle with that, right? Like, let's do some baby steps. And and but I think also with it too, I think while it's important, I think it's one of those things like God gave us six days to work and one day to rest. Uh-huh. So I don't think necessarily that this is something that, like, hey, you need to be spending X amount of hours per day in silence, because that's just not super realistic for most people. Yeah. Can you have moments of silence throughout the day? Absolutely. Can you have a time where you intentionally set aside time to do this? You should and you can.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, but I think also having realistic goals for yourself too, I think is very important in there as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And I I mean that's just kind of that general principle and discipline that if you jump to a hyper difficult phase, the failure that you've experienced in that, which you will experience failure, um, will encourage you not to do it again. Right. And a lot of people find themselves in that that space where um they make those efforts to practice solitude and silence, and because they're not able to do it for very long, because By nature, a discipline makes you uncomfortable. You gotta grow. Uh all growth is in uh has discomfort. Um then they say, Well, it didn't work for me, so I'm not gonna continue with it. Um and I I mean I'll be honest here too, that on the sabbatical, one of my big goals that I had was to spend more time on a daily basis, excuse me, I'm gonna cough. Um spend more time on a on a daily basis in prayer, in prayer, the solitude, and silence. And the reality was because I was at home and because I have three children, that didn't happen. Like it is as early as I would get up, there was a there was either a pet or a child that was already awake and was demanding my attention immediately. Um it was interesting because during that time I thought, well, I'm not going to work, so it's just going it's going to be able to happen. But because I did not preserve that time, it didn't happen. And then so the ironic thing has been since coming back to work, I've been able to better establish um that rhythm because you know we start I started to I made a plan and then I scheduled the plan and now I'm carrying out the plan. And so uh it is it is an interesting thing. Do you see any kind of a role for community when it comes to silence and solitude? Like, I mean, is that because when we talk about again as disciplines like working out, it's helpful when you have other people around you that you can talk with about it or who are journeying. I mean, do you see that as possible with silence and solitude?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I think in general, I think community is linked just to a lot of very positive benefits in your life. If you're talking about the actual act of solitude, probably not going to be the most helpful of like the actual, hey, I'm gonna go hang out with people and not talk to them. Yeah. Seems like kind of like an odd thing. But however, I think in terms of the encouragement of being able to see other people modeling it well or being able to seek advice. Um, I think in those ways, absolutely. And I think that's one of the benefits of the church community is that you realize, hey, number one, I'm not alone in the struggle with this. I think that's an important part too. Is sometimes we have a tendency to reflect on ourselves in a very negative way. Yeah. Like we're very unique in our sin. Um, and this is that's kind of that first Corinthians 10 of no temptation is seized except what is common to man, right? Right is that idea that other people are are kind of going through the same thing. But so we're gonna set up some accountability, we're gonna set up some encouragement for each other to engage in this. I think that can help in that as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think what it does too is gives you the room for confession and areas and the practice, because I mean, vulnerability also is something you have to practice. Um, and um being able to be honest about why do I do the things that I do? Am I busy for the sake of busyness? Am I am I busy for the sake of pride? Am I busy because I'm afraid to tell people no? I mean, a lot of these are things that we keep rolling around in our minds, and because we never share it with anybody else, nothing ever changes. Um, and so community can help us grow, can help us grow stronger uh and more effective in our discipline, uh for sure. Um and then the last one that I had on here was the idea of journaling that progress that you know one of the things that God gives us disciplines and pathways for is so that we can in turn and encourage one another with the insights. You know, I I think about how, you know, generally we tend we can have these great insights or these inspirations, and then because we didn't record it, because we didn't follow up with it, um nothing ever came of it. We were never able to use it to glorify God or be redeemed or whatever. Uh one of the things that I I've started doing myself uh is when I have an idea and I have that kind of inspiration, especially in a quiet time for uh article that I want to write, I'll go on to a note on my phone and I'll write it down real quick and then won't think about it till later. But but by being prepared on that, I've been able to retain a lot of things that God has I felt laid on my heart and it gives me the ability to come back later and then use it for other people and use it for for their good and for God's glory. And so um I see that as that idea of recording it, of journaling, which is hard, I guess, because like in the in the in the biblical passage when Jesus is talking about praying, right? He says, when you pray, go shut the door and be quiet. I mean, so do you mean is there an issue there, you think, about being open about this discipline of silence and solitude?
SPEAKER_00No, I don't think so. I mean, I think there's a difference in like like I was at a a conference one time uh and I heard, and as a pastor got up on stage, it basically spent like 45 minutes telling everybody there that we were really weak Christians because we were in the West and we weren't as good as the East and all that kind of stuff because they had more discipline than we did. But then he just he just randomly just quoted all of Psalm 119, uh-huh. Which which is very impressive. Yeah. But it's like had nothing to do with what he was talking about. And to me, like that's just spiritual flexing. That's just saying, like, look at how good I am at what I'm doing. Yeah. Versus having a group, hey, this is the importance of memorization, and like, and let's talk about the like the need for this. And so I think there's a difference in encouraging in a small group. Yeah, um, and I'm gonna go on social media and hey, like I knocked out like 50 minutes of solitude. Like, I'm I'm so I'm so look at me, I'm so disciplined. Right. There's a difference in those two things. But I think the journaling thing is actually a very helpful tool because for a lot of people, it is this idea of like, well, what am I what am I supposed to be doing while I'm sitting here? Like practically speaking, I know it's kind of like our next point, but it's like practically speaking, what do I actually do while I'm just sitting here? And I think that the journaling is a good conduit to be able to like keep yourself focused on what you're trying to focus on in that time. And it's giving you a way to kind of to to put your energy into something like as you're like just kind of sitting, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, because I mean that that winds up being the biggest issue, right? That when you're practicing silence of solitude, you're so used to doing things that you need to do something. And and frankly, as a human being, we don't just experience things and not respond to it, right? Like it's not like you put your hand on a hot stove and think, hmm, I should journal about this. I mean, we're we're prepared to express it. Uh, but I mean, with silence of solitude, you know, the you can you can have that and then go right back into that busyness cycle and not remember that you ever had it. And, you know, sometimes we need reminders that are outside of ourselves to continue to inspire and engage and kick us into gear so that we can do it well.
SPEAKER_00And I think there's also like an intentionality that comes, like even if you think about reading the Bible, because I found myself you know the Bible in the year, and I found myself doing that before. And I this sounds bad to say, but it's like where I'm doing my reading and then I get to the end of it, and then like 20 minutes later, I'm like, what did I read? Like it's almost like my mind was somewhere else while I was reading it. Whereas if you were to take the time, like you talked about with yours, like taking time to write the book of John.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, and so take even that act of you're not even you're not even putting any thought into it. You're just writing, like you're just copying. Uh, but that directs you and gives you more intentionality than just reading it does.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Yeah. And what he's referring to, um, one of the things that I tried to do on my sabbatical, I'm still kind of doing it. I didn't do a great job of it, uh, of keeping it regular, but uh I wanted to try to copy down the book of John um just to you know walk through thinking through thinking through the process of copying, of paying attention, stuff like that. It was it was a really enriching experience. Um, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for everybody because maybe that's not your burden to walk through it, maybe, but for me in that season that was a direction that when I've when I'm in solitude or silence, it's a good opportunity for me to let the word of God flow through me to the extent that I'm not using it for something else, but rather just for the sake for its own sake. Um and I found I found that incredibly encouraging. And so Nathan, what are some practical steps then? If we're gonna try to defeat busyness, what are some practical steps that we should practice in order to try to make that kind of difference?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Uh I think depends on your context and what your issue with busyness is, right? We kind of talked about there's multiple ways people struggle with this. But let's say, for instance, it it's work, it's like a work-life balance. Yeah, at a certain point, you need to learn how to say no. Yeah. And you need to learn how to set time. Yeah. Um, I just very practical example. We got some changes coming up with young adults. We got a lot of new opportunities coming up to where there's gonna be three, four, a couple, two, three times a week at least, where young adults are gonna have an opportunity to gather in a group and engage, which is really great. But that's a lot for me, like, and I I talked about what with Ellie and the leadership was like, I can't go to three things a week. Yeah. I've got I've I've got to be with my family too, right? So it's like I had to kind of build in, hey, here's what I'm gonna do each week to engage in this, but I can't be at everything every week. Right, right. Because if I was to do that, I'm neglecting my family at that point. And so I had to make that choice of, hey, I want this to happen, but just so you guys know, this is what I can do going into it.
SPEAKER_02Well, and I like that statement that's out there for leadership management that if we if we uh fail to plan, then we plan to fail. And we do that with our schedules all the time because we don't want to deal with it and just kind of go with the flow or whatever, um, we wind up finding ourselves constantly engaged, constantly busy. And then because we've said uh okay to some kind of good things, we wind up having to say no to the best things. Um and you know, listener, I hope you I hope you understand that principle when we're talking about the value of these pathways, that all of these spiritual pathways to some extent require you to say no to something else, so that you can say yes to the best thing. Um and so making sure that when it comes to your scheduling, that you you own your schedule, that your schedule doesn't own you, uh, is a big deal and um is something that can be very hard to recover from as well. Yeah. Um, what else we got?
SPEAKER_00Well, and I think the and it's kind of I think it's it sounds kind of counterintuitive as well, but it's like I think understand there are seasons for things. Yeah. So it gives a little bit of grace. Like, for instance, like every week's not the same. Yeah. But it's like if you're an accountant, you when you're hitting tax season, it's gonna be you're gonna have a lot harder time to do this. Yeah, and so maybe for you it's gonna be less in that season because you just the demands on you are just significantly higher. Yeah, right. There are certain points, you can't say, hey, sorry guys, I boss, I've got to stop. Like, you know, that doesn't always work. Yeah, and so on, give yourself a little bit of grace in it too. That there is there are seasons where this will be more difficult. Yeah, but there that means there are other seasons though where you can practice it. And so finding ways to practice it in ways that also like it makes sense, it's important, but we are all we do, we actually do have things we have to do in life. And I don't think it's a bad thing. I think we are created to be productive, yeah. But I think it's finding that balance in there.
SPEAKER_02Well, and I think it's interesting that even when uh Master Jonathan decided to do this series, instead of calling it spiritual disciplines, we talked about it being pathways. Because and you think about what a pathway is, you don't go on a pathway for the sake of the pathway itself. It's to get somewhere, it's it's to it's to rise to a different level than where you start. Um, and we do tend to fall in love with the pathways themselves, the disciplines themselves, and this situation that you're bringing up of feeling guilty because you're not able to squeeze it in. I mean, what's the goal? Like, what is the priority? And with all these pathways, obviously the priority is to be able to more clearly hear the voice of God and to build our relationship with God. And so on that note, I mean, there will be times where you're just not equipped or ready or or really um enabled to take that pathway. It doesn't mean that the that the destination is going to change, it just means you're gonna take it a different time. But you still got a plan to do it sometime, and that's what we're trying to encourage you, that don't let that role of busyness become so oppressive and that you can never think ahead that you're always thinking just of the now, um, and certainly not of the past. I I think that's another area that people will um struggle with is oh well I did I I did so bad on all this, and I'm just not I'm just so busy and I'm I'm whatever, this is terrible. And it's like don't do that. That's not helpful thinking.
SPEAKER_00No. I think also the last thing that's kind of the last thing I would say too. This is mostly for the younger generation, uh, but it's it's don't spend so much time doom scrolling that you don't leave yourself time for this. Because it's very easy to do. You need to find that for those who don't know. So doom scrolling is kind of this idea of I'm just gonna scroll through social media and memes and videos and all this kind of stuff, or like Reddit, whatever it might be, for 45 minutes, an hour, hour and a half, where it's like, hey, I should have gone to bed an hour ago, but instead I've just been going through memes on my phone. Uh and so it's I call that doom scrolling. And so sometimes I think it's not that we don't have the time, it's that we don't prioritize the time well. So it's like just a look at that as well. That if you're replacing the time you would have for solitude or with God to just go through your phone for a couple of hours a day, then you might have a you know I might have more of a prior prioritization issue than a time issue.
SPEAKER_02And that's the largest part of why we we so we so fill our time with entertainment, with uh binge watching shows, with uh the no like a lot of the noise is because if we're if we're paying attention to that, then we're not having to think. And you know, the other part of it from that vulnerability standpoint, it's I I find that a lot of people do the most spiritual growth and the most serious introspection when there's not other inputs happening around them. It's that idea of right before you go to sleep, like if it's just you and the darkness over your bed, man, there's a there's a lot to think about during that time. And it's a I know in my life that's been some of the times where I've really done the best thinking and the best dreaming and the best and the best introspection of you know, what am I doing here? Um but the more that we can fill those spaces with sound and noise and activity and even good things, um, the less we have to be with ourselves. And um I think for a lot of people that's what the drive is is hey, if I can fill that time, then I don't have to I don't have to be with myself. Oh, it's an escape. Yeah, it's an escapism.
SPEAKER_00And even as parents, that that that uh oh I could be present with my kids or I can scroll my phone, you know? Yeah, and I I think even that and I I've had to wrestle with that too of like because how easy is it to open your phone and just start doing this whenever your kids are playing, as opposed to being present with your kids. It's a real struggle.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I mean, yeah, and I mean you have two boys, so you know I mean you've got to be physically present or the It's whenever they are silent that the issues arise. That's the scary one. It's when the dinosaur is sneaking up on you. Um one last thing that I want to bring up here before we kind of close up our our conversation on this, um, and I didn't have this in the notes, so like this little nice little off the cuff kind of thing here. But what difference does killing busyness make? Like when you when you meet people who you can tell are spending a good amount of time that they that they have this down, that they do spend solitude, they do spend silence, and frankly, they're just they are they are a productive but not busy person. What are some things that you see that are good that come out of those people's lives?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think uh there's just a way that some people kind of carry themselves a little bit. Um I think you can kind of see a comfortability that comes out some uh that kind of comes with it. And I think you also see people who not necessarily, I don't want to say because I want to make if you're introverted, you can not necessarily like, but just more engaged in in conversation, more present, more present. I think it's the best way to describe it. Don't basically think you're talking the whole time, but that because you can kind of tell if you're talking to someone and you can tell they're they're thinking, they're not really focusing on your conversation. Yeah, they're they're already thinking of their response, they're thinking of what's coming up, they're thinking of other things. Um, and so I think it kind of it's people who are able to engage a little bit more. Yeah. Um, and I think that's a very noticeable thing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there is a real full, there's a more fullness, right? And and I mean, I and you said that word comfortability. I kind of think confidence goes along with that as well, that they are not the things that they're doing, they mean to do, and they're not being carried along by other things. And so those are the kind of people that I'll go to, especially when I'm dealing with something difficult, because I know, hey, these people practice self-control, and so maybe they can help me to practice self-control as well. And and also just to seek what are those sources of confidence. And I mean, it's almost always have you know, the question is have you prayed about this? Have you have you taken a step back from it? And like, well, well, no, dang it. I was making a list of 10 things to do.
SPEAKER_00You've been healed. I've healed you. Just be less anxious.
SPEAKER_02I'm healed. Just every anxious person's favorite words. Just don't worry about it. Have you tried not caring? Well, yeah. So anyway, well, thank you, friends, for joining us. We've had a great conversation here uh on silence and solitude uh and also the soul killer of busyness. And so, Nathan, any last thoughts before we uh tune out today?
SPEAKER_00No, I mean just we've already mentioned it, but I think it's one of those things like anything else, if you don't, if you do not consciously choose this, you're not gonna do it. You are never gonna passively grow in your faith, you're never gonna passively grow in spiritual discipline. Um especially in these days and age, there's very few times you're gonna find yourself just sitting in silence and focusing on spiritual matters, focusing on relationship with God or trying to hear his voice. You're you're just not gonna accidentally do that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, so just set the time, yeah, baby steps, set goals that are realistic, and start working your way, start working in the discipline into your life.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And then celebrate the times when you do succeed. And that definitely makes a difference. Well, friends, thank you for joining us here today on the Citizen 8 TX podcast. Thank you, Nathan, for joining us as well. And we look forward to next time as we continue this spiritual, the opposite of spiritual pathways series in the Soul Killers. Uh, and we hope that if you have not been tracking along with us here at ABC, we encourage you to go check out some of the sermons that we have been preached from our pulpit the last several weeks and find ways that you can continue to grow and put into that maturity in Christ. So take care, friends. We look forward to seeing you next time on this pathway on the Citizen ATX podcast. Take care.